Marilyn Stuber, long-time professor at Meredith College, passed away on January 26. She was 95 years old.
A native of Ord, Nebraska, Dr. Stuber earned her bachelor’s degree in vocational home economics from the University of Nebraska. After a couple of stints teaching at high schools in Nebraska, she returned to her alma mater to earn her master’s degree in home economics.
In 1965, Dr. Stuber was hired as a home economics instructor at Meredith College, a women’s liberal arts institution in Raleigh, North Carolina. Two years later, she was named an assistant professor and appointed chair of the home economics department, a position she held for the next 28 years. Dr. Stuber achieved the rank of full professor in 1980, one year after she earned a doctorate in occupational education from North Carolina State University.
Under Dr. Stuber’s leadership, the department of home economics grew its faculty from two members to 17 full-time and part-time members. She also oversaw the addition of four new areas of study in nutrition, interior design, child development, and fashion merchandising. Shortly before her retirement in 1995, the department was renamed to human environmental sciences. At that time, it had the largest number of majors of any department at Meredith.
Currently, the department of human environmental sciences at Meredith has two endowments named in Dr. Stuber’s honor: The Marilyn M. Stuber Scholarship Fund and the Dr. Marilyn M. Stuber and Dr. Charles W. Stuber Endowed Professorship.